Marketing TextThe IC&IC project aims to enhance the knowledge of internal and external consultants as well as middle and top managers of companies in internationalizing businesses. It enables companies to work in an international economical context, to react to the market demands, to become more dynamic and flexible and to operate successfully in the globalized business environment.

SummaryUntil now, on the Romanian vocational training system a training course for internationalizing companies hasn’t been introduced before. According to the actual socio-economic scenario, the “Innovative Concept for Internationalizing companies” project main goal is to develop the individuals and organizational competences in supporting Romanian companies’ strategic and international competitiveness, also in terms of improved capacities in managing business environment’s changes and labour market’s evolvement in the internationalization context; the main objectives are to implement an innovative internationalizing companies programme and the to create job enrichment for increasing companies’ international activities - based on the dynamic transfer and adaptation of the “Internationalization Consulting” curriculum and methodology successfully developed and implemented in seven European countries during a previous Leonardo da Vinci project partnership.
The goals and objectives are proposed by the project’s Consortium, which was specially created in order to lead to the successfully achievement of the project. Composition of the Consortium relies on the diverse and complementary competences and experience of the partners, the consortium as a whole expresses the critical competences required for effectively achieving the project’s results.
The most important results are the innovative curriculum and modern learning methodology (including e-learning) for internationalizing companies, into the Romanian vocational training system, according to specific identified needs, culture and requirements related to the new professional roles supporting internationalization processes.
The IC&IC builds bridges between different learning contexts and learning forms, and facilitate access to individual pathways of learning. The project has impact both on individuals knowledge and abilities development in the internationalizing companies area and on the Romanian companies’ strategic development. This project enables companies to know the international economical context features, to react strongly to the markets threats, to become more dynamic and flexible and to operate successfully in this business environment.

DescriptionThe project’s goal is to develop the individual and organizational competences for supporting Romanian companies’ strategic and international competitiveness, also in terms of improved capacities in managing business environment’s changes and labour market’s evolution in the internationalization context.
The main objectives are:
1. to implement an innovative internationalizing companies programme:
- transfer, adapt and enrich best practices from the internationalization consulting training to the local context and expectations;
- analyze the needs of the Romanian medium and large sized companies on what concerning their presence on the dynamic international markets;
- develop a new curriculum and learning methodologies combining traditional practices with e-learning;
- ensure the quality of training activities also by validating the competences by a national certification body.
2. to create job enrichment for increasing companies’ international activities:
- aware the Romanian employees and their companies about their high potential to became an active player in European market;
- develop consulting skills, abilities and competences emphasizing the importance of the creativity and entrepreneurship;
- increase the companies involvement in the international business activities;
- improve the companies strengths by adapting to the international markets challenges.
The project’s objectives are focused on the need of implementation of an innovative training programme for internationalizing companies, meant to improve the adults skills and performances in the labour market, to contribute to their life long learning activities, conforming to the Leonardo da Vinci ‘s priorities. The training programme is designed to raise the applicants’ knowledge and abilities in a large area of competences needed for their companies international activity: digital competences, foreign language, self learning capacity, more creativity and entrepreneurship. It supports the working life’s quality improvement by connecting employees with innovative specific knowledge, in order to enable them to achieve a higher level considering the performance, competitiveness and efficiency. The employees are able to combine the work place abilities and experience with those received during this training programme. A part of the training programme is provided on e-learning support, permitting the applicants, the project team and the companies to develop their ICT competences, according to the Lisbon strategy related to the everyone’s access to the new information and communication society. Through the Romanian employees and managers training programme attendance, their companies intensify external activities, creating a network with European companies, which lead to interoperability.
Methodology - according to the preliminary data, in Romania the internationalizing companies concept hasn’t been promoted yet and there aren’t any appropriate vocational training programmes, teaching materials and methodologies. On the other hand, a training programme regarding Internationalisation Consulting had been successfully applied in seven European countries during the previous Leonardo da Vinci project. That’s why the IC&IC project proposes to transfer and to localize in Romania the good practices, already implemented abroad through the INCO project.
The project methodological approach intends to adapt and integrate INCO innovative content and results; the process for transferring will develop through the following phases (work packages and tasks in section 9.1):
- Transferring & Need Analysis and Research (Survey design, delivery and data analysis; Need analysis research; Transfer feasibility study);
- Design of the IC&IC training programme (New course plan and methodology mix; translation and localization of INCO Materials; Enlarging and enriching materials; Set up of the distance learning system)
- Training programme implementation (After the pilot run will be carried out, evaluated and fine-tuned, the new curriculum will be implemented and disseminated);
- Dissemination and exploitation (Workshops; Web Communication; Communication materials);
Project’ activities will be supported by a solid project management approach.
As regarding the training programme methodological approach:
- the learning materials are complex and are based on the initial training programme, composed by six course modules written in English: Essentials of Internationalisation Consulting (core course), International Strategies of Market Entry, International Project Management, Intercultural Management and English for Business Communication. The teaching methodology mixes the traditional with electronic learning (e-learning). In the new context, the course modules will be translated in Romanian language, and their contents, the structure and the modules number will be changed and adapted to the local companies’ needs and to the Romanian market context.
- Even the previous training programme used more presence learning than e-learning, the innovative adapted training will focuses more on e-learning, because the teaching materials are created and it only have to be adapted, translated and adjusted conforming to the Romanian companies need analysis. First of all, it is required a transferring and needs analysis about internationalisation field, followed by the capitalization and adaptation of the results in the new context.
Target group - The target group of the project on short term is represented by the employees, middle and top managers of medium and large companies. They need to acquire specific knowledge, abilities, competences through a developed curriculum, which prepares them to act in the internationalized market. In addition the target group needs to posses some background knowledge regarding the curriculum content, such as: higher education studies, PC’s abilities and English knowledge. The target group on long term extends over the management consultants (individuals and/or consulting companies with the main focus on internationalization) and university graduates, who are interested in a job in internationalizing companies domain and therefore need to improve their knowledge in this subject field.
Impact and outcomes - The project intends to impact both on: individuals’ knowledge and competences development in the internationalizing area; Romanian companies’ strategic development and competence building.
The short term impact of the project is that it creates the involvement of the employees and managers in a VET and develops their knowledge bases related to the international economical environment, threats, opportunities and topics, contributing to the labour market’s quality improvement.
The companies get more sensible to the topic of Internationalization, improve the capacity to adapt the future global market, to manage well its risks, to start having an active role in these markets, being more dynamic and flexible, to operate successfully in this context and to elaborate strategies by recognizing the main issues surrounding international environment and its opportunities. This project also improves the Romanian vocational and educational training system, through the implementation of a new training curriculum and an innovative concept, and the use of a modern didactical methodology, based mostly on electronic learning. In addition, through this project a network over the know-how platform between training institutions, Romanian and other European companies will be created.
Long term impact - It can be assumed that demand for internationalizing companies training will continuously rise because in a knowledge society the companies will wish to develop in the transnational competitive arena; the “market” for this training programme will therefore continue to increase. In addition, as the number of courses demanded by users will continuously increase and adaptation costs (also in terms of decreasing costs for eContent development) can be spread across a large number of course participants, course prices can be reduced significantly in the future (economies of scale). Also, the blended IC&IC methodology will further reduce training costs for companies (no travel costs, no costs for trainers and classrooms, availability of most up-to-date training content) and will create a growing demand.

2. Design of the IC&IC training programme (New course plan and methodology mix; translation and localization of INCO Materials; Enlarging and enriching materials; Set up of the distance learning system);

3. Pilot training delivery
Training programme implementation (After the pilot run will be carried out, evaluated and fine-tuned, the new curriculum will be implemented and disseminated);

the learning materials are complex and are based on the initial training programme, composed by six course modules written in English:
Essentials of Internationalisation Consulting (core course)
International Strategies of Market Entry
International Project Management
Intercultural Management
English for Business Communication.

The teaching methodology mixes the traditional with electronic learning (e-learning).

In the new context, the course modules will be translated in Romanian language, and their contents, the structure and the modules number will be changed and adapted to the local companies’ needs and to the Romanian market context.

- it creates the involvement of the employees and managers in a VET and develops their knowledge bases related to the international economical environment, threats, opportunities and topics, contributing to the labour market’s quality improvement.

- The companies get more sensible to the topic of Internationalization, improve the capacity to adapt the future global market, to manage well its risks, to start having an active role in these markets.

- This project improves the Romanian vocational and educational training system, through the implementation of a new training curriculum and an innovative concept, and the use of a modern didactical methodology, based mostly on electronic learning.

- In addition, through this project a network over the know-how platform between training institutions, Romanian and other European companies will be created.

Long term impact

- demand for internationalizing companies training will continuously rise because in a knowledge society the companies will wish to develop in the transnational competitive arena;

- the number of courses demanded by users will continuously increase and adaptation costs (also in terms of decreasing costs for eContent development) can be spread across a large number of course participants, course prices can be reduced significantly in the future (economies of scale);

- the blended IC&IC methodology will further reduce training costs for companies (no travel costs, no costs for trainers and classrooms, availability of most up-to-date training content) and will create a growing demand .

ADAM, the Project and Product Portal for Leonardo da Vinci is funded by the European Commission, DG Education and Culture. The information in the ADAM portal is provided by the beneficiaries' organisations and is the sole responsibility of those organisations. The National Agencies as well as the Commission declines all responsibility regarding this information, particularly regarding its accuracy and its respect to copyright. (DVR: 4000157)